86 Still House
Botanical distillers · Wrenford

Small batch · Copper no. 4 · Est. 1986

The gin that
obeys your hand.

Ten botanicals. One patient copper still. Move a flavor and watch the spirit choose a new path through Still House Eighty-Six.

Enter the blending room
Charge
780 L
Botanical bill
21.6 kg
Keeper
M. Vale
Golden hour17:42Still room temperature 28°C

The flavor wheel · drag any node

Distill by instinct.

Pull a botanical toward the rim to let it speak. The tasting note below is composed fresh from your exact proportions.

QuietForward
86 HOUSE BLEND

Drag the copper seeds · keyboard: tab to a seed, then use arrow keys

LeadJuniper 76 StructurePine / citrus BalanceDry, lifted
Vapor routeJuniper · bright lift
Copper still vapor route Animated vapor beads travel through the still neck toward a condenser. Their route changes with the leading botanical family. SH 86 HAND-HAMMERED COPPER
Tasting note / 241–A

A firm juniper opening gives way to lifted lemon peel and coriander. Orris lends a cool, powdered middle while angelica roots the finish: dry, pine-dark and quietly persistent.

Juniper leads46.2% ideal bottling strengthLondon dry profile
ResinLiftBloomHeat

Precision after perfume

The heart is not a place.
It is a decision.

At dawn, distiller Mara Vale tastes every seven minutes. The volatile heads arrive first; the elegant heart follows; heavier oils gather in the tails. Move through the run to see what makes the bottle.

Charge
780 L
Run
9h 14m
Heart yield
312 L
Spirit-safe meter
10:36Heart · 78.4% ABV
Keep

Clean citrus oils, supple juniper and the most articulate spice: this is the spirit we keep.

Spirit safe · keeper's cut
Heads06:10–08:43 · redirect Hearts08:43–13:02 · bottle Tails13:02–15:24 · feints

Cabinet 04 · specimens from the gin room

The quiet
architecture of flavor.

Every sack is opened, warmed in the palm, and catalogued before maceration.

01 / Juniperus communis

Juniper

Wild-picked in the limestone folds above Koper. Resin, black tea, cold pine.

48% of house botanical bill
02 / Citrus aurantium

Bitter orange

Sun-dried peel from the Ferraro orchard. Marmalade, pith and orange blossom.

Cut by hand · harvest 16B
03 / Angelica archangelica

Angelica root

Loamy and muscular, the bridge between bright top notes and the long, dry close.

Rested 14 months · Lot AR–09
04 / Iris germanica

Orris

Three-year-cured iris rhizome. Violet dust, suede and a cooling, silvery texture.

Florentine origin · 0.8 g/L
Keeper’s ledger · Batch 241 “At 17:42, the copper gives the orchard back.” M. Vale · blue pencil / south window
Copper No. 4, photographed in light at 17:42

An old room with a young pulse

Made slowly in the last light.

“A still remembers how you treat it.”

Mara Vale inherited an empty grain store and one bruised 600-litre Holstein in 1986. She repaired the swan neck herself, planted juniper against the south wall, and made precisely 412 bottles that winter.

We still distill one shift a day. The copper is steam-cleaned, never polished inside. Spent botanicals feed the dye garden next door. And every keeper’s cut is signed in blue pencil before it can become Still House 86.

Mara ValeFounder & master distiller

The bottle room · your imagined release

Give your blend
a name worth keeping.

Your current botanical proportions are already on the label. Name the spirit, choose its seal, and make a keepsake from this visit.

Wax seal

Set in Wrenford · Batch 241–A

SH 86
Hand-distilled botanical gin 86

Golden Quiet

Still House

Juniper · Lemon · Coriander

WRENFORD, ENGLAND · 46.2% VOL · 500 ML
86
Your formulationJUN 76 · LEM 61 · COR 58Recorded in the house ledger · 10 July 2026